This invention pertains to the technical question of orienting, shifting or adjusting, on three degrees of freedom, a mobile body in relation to a static part or structure.
The purpose of the invention is especially the question of positioning any body in relation to a static reference and it especially involves adjusting the orientation of a body which must also be mobile under rotation on an axis that can adopt any orientation inside a pre-set solid angle.
The invention can be the subject of several different applications and it can be implemented, especially for robots, steerable structure controls, like radar, industry manipulators, guidance platform controls, etc.
In the various areas mentioned above, the issue of adjusting, orienting or shifting a mobile body, in relation to a static structure along several degrees of freedom, takes place by implementing an activator integral with each concerned clearance axis or degree. This leads to the formation of a heavy, cumbersome, onerous unit because of the large number of activators and their linkage control means.
Furthermore, such a concept leads to the creation of disadvantages resulting from the various implemented activators and especially questions of reliability, directly related to them.
Thus, patent FR No. 2 325 974 discloses a device having three degrees of freedom at the mechanical level, but only two degrees of electric motorizing with two pairs of poles which are diametrically opposed in the same horizontal plane.
Indeed, the three mechanical degrees of freedom cannot be controlled independently.
Patent DE No. 977 623 discloses a device that is analogous to the previous one but it incorporates an additional electric engine in order to supply a third degree of freedom. The third engine is mobile relative to the support since its inductor and its armature are mounted on a mobile apparatus, which constitutes a heavy device of which the mobile parts possess a high degree of inertia. Therefore it involves simply an engine with one degree of freedom of which the support is stabilized.
The purpose of the invention is to replace the various activators of the prior technique with a unique means that can overcome the aforementioned drawbacks while permitting motion for a mobile body relative to a static reference on three degrees of freedom, one of those degrees of freedom representing a complete rotating axis for the mobile body, and the movement of each degree of freedom can be achieved independently from the movements on the two other axes.
Another purpose of the invention is to achieve simultaneous or independent control on each or several of the degrees of freedom so as to trigger an ensuing motion which is directly related to the individual components pertaining to the concerned degrees of freedom and is not the simple superimposition of three distinct motions which are obtained with separate driving means that are distinct one from the other.
An additional purpose of the invention is to supply means for detecting the shift, the adjustment or the orientation of the mobile body relative to a static reference, so as to be able to determine immediately the relative spacing position that is adopted following the executed shift control.